Hallowed Circle

Chapter 22

"The path I laid at your feet, you have traveled. And now you gather to Me." Hecate's voice reverberated within me.

The velvety mist-figure stretched her arms over our heads. Palms up, mist and power poured from Her hands like the tails of rocketing fireworks, but ever-burning. The sparks showered to the floor before us and rippled like water from an upended bucket. The sparkling lights reached our feet and floated up and over us. It touched my skin as if my clothes weren't there, sinking in like the faintest pinprick kisses. She restored all She had taken from me and gave me more, filling me up with Her understanding, Her courage, Her approval.

"My blessings on you, witches who hear Me. Witches who hasten to my bidding. Witches mine."

She flowed through the dais as if it were intangible. As she came toward us she shrank to human size, though one arm stretched to caress Menessos's cheek. "Be forgiven," came a whisper as soft as the wind.

Just as She neared, just as I hoped to see details in Her face, Her eyes—the velvet mist became just mist, and it dissipated as if it never were.

The Eldrenne sat straight; the Elders lifted their heads. "And now my test for you—" the Eldrenne said.

Both Hunter and Maria stood just as before. No one displayed—in word, gesture, or attitude—any reaction to Hecate's presence or disappearance. "Witches who hear me," She had said. Who had heard? Who had not?

"— my test is to create a protrepticus."

A pro-trep-what?

She gestured to the cauldron and thick black mist shot from her hand to cover the top. "Select an item. Maria has gone first many times. Let Hunter choose first."

Hunter went forward in an obedient, if cautious gait. She stared down into the cauldron.

"Fear not, child; nothing inside will sting or bite."

Hunter reached in and pulled out a round, palm-sized item of silver. With a confused expression, she opened the item. "It's a purse mirror."

"Maria."

Maria pulled a locket from the cauldron.

"Persephone."

The black mist swirled over the cauldron, effectively blocking the contents from sight. I reached in and came up with… a cell phone.

"The item in your hands will become your protrepticus."

Beside me Maria said, "Excuse me, Eldrenne. I'm not familiar with that term. Can you explain a pro— pro—?"

"Pro-TREP-ti-cus," the Eldrenne said slowly. "The protrepticus is a device that houses an aide of sorts. It will be very beneficial to the high priestess." With one gnarled finger, she gestured over her shoulder. "Behind the dais, three tables have been set." As she spoke candles on the darkened far side of the room flickered to life.

"Everything you need is waiting for you. You may begin now."

Again, Maria spoke up. "Are the spell instructions on the tables, Eldrenne?"

The Eldrenne laughed in a slow, mirthless way. We three caught on: this was the bad part.

"Like any witch worth her salt, I have no doubt that if you are standing before me now, you could pick up a spell you've never seen and be as successful as a master chef with a new recipe."

"Are we to construct our own spell, then?" Hunter asked.

"Again, any of you could achieve that, couldn't you?"

Uncomfortable, I waited. I wasn't going to ask anything. She'd tell us what she wanted us to know. Maybe the other two had figured that out as well. The Great Hall was silent for a long minute.

"This test is meant to separate the winner, to lift her up and mark her as the high priestess of a WEC-recognized coven. This test is more than witchcraft, more than social skill, more than shrewdness and resolve. This is a test of raw talent. The kind that reveals whether we are dealing with mere witches, or if a sorceress is among you."

"Sorcery?" Maria whispered.

"Yes," the Eldrenne whispered back. "This is the Venefica Coven; after all, 'Venefica, translated, means 'sorceress, so we expect the high priestess to be able to fulfill the role as intended. An ordovia awaits you, but it will take more than your ability to read and follow directions to succeed. Begin now."

Ordovia was the old term for spell scroll. Most witches used their Book of Shadows for spell-keeping. Perhaps ordovia was more specific to sorcery.

Hunter went to the first table, the one on the left, Maria to the middle one, and I approached the remaining table to its right.

This was it. Last round. My entire goal here was to knock Hunter out of the running and it hadn't happened. Did I leave this round a loser and let whatever would be, be? Maria was competent. She might make it. But I didn't honestly believe that. She'd sounded too disconcerted by this test. Hunter would win.

I glanced at her as I stepped up to my table. In the course of these tests, she'd convinced me that she could not only do the job, but be a high priestess also.

I'd been wrong about her. I wasn't too big for my britches to admit it.

So why was I doing this?

To keep from being Bindspoken.

I had to proceed. Or at least act like it. Just go through the motions enough to convince the Elders.

Before me the table, illuminated by a single taper candle at either end, was set with various unlit candles, bowls of salt and water, incense sticks, and little sprigs of herbs. A scroll, the ordovia, lay front and center.

Placing the cell phone on the table, I thumbed the WEC-embossed seal. I remembered explaining sorcery to Johnny before the spell for Theo. I'd compared it to sand on a beach. "The sand touches the sea and the air," I'd said, "and stretches along the coast and inland to the soil. Witchcraft is like that: it receives the waves of power—the gods and goddesses of the various pantheons—and touches the energy of nature, influences it, to shape witches' will through rituals and spells. But sorcery digs through witchcraft, burrowing deep into places you cannot see to find the treasure—the power—below the surface. It consumes that power, directly creating immediate change, not just influencing a future one."

"Witchcraft is sand," he'd replied. "Sorcery is buried treasure. Got it."

Sand on a beach… Johnny.

My chest felt tight at that memory, but I forcibly mastered myself again.

Sorcery, Nana had taught me, was to be used only as a last resort in moments when immediacy absolutely demanded it. The power was overly eager for release and wild when loosed. As if that weren't enough, its effects could be intoxicating. Many witches tasted it and became addicted, finding more and more excuses to use the immediate and instantly gratifying sorcery, working until it consumed them.

At home, the ley line in the grove powered my wards and I wasn't afraid of it—that was a simple redirection, a mere droplet of power. That droplet had the power to numb my whole arm for the moment it took to use. And I'd learned that while the initial touch of a ley line is prickly and sizzling, like putting your hand into boiling water, that sensation quickly turned into numbness. Extended exposure led to the next phase, where that heated «almost-pain» then dulled to an intoxicating warmth. You got a not-quite-inebriated feeling, a slightly euphoric buzz. I understood how that could take hold and create an addiction.

So, I was wary. Venefica Covenstead, like all covensteads, was built on a ley line nucleus, an intersection of lines. It had far more power to offer than the single line I tapped.

Even as I thought about it, the energy acknowledged me with a tiny pulse. It whispered and I understood it was deep, a monster buried in the lowest subterranean depths to protect the world. It was caged, trapped power, slowly being poisoned by its captivity. It begged to be called on, to be touched and loosed, to flow free and roil with ecstasy. It would become contaminated, polluted, if it did not flow, if I did not hurry and release it.

The ordovia's waxy seal snapped as my fingers applied pressure, and the scroll's thick paper unrolled in my hands.

I am your buried treasure, the whispering power said. Like the chest you selected and opened with your key, you recognize the potential in what is not seen by others, you recognize what we could be together… and I recognize what others do not see in you, Lustrata! Call on me, raise me up! I will do your bidding and we will be infinitely potent.

"Shut up," I whispered back. The grove's line was not a manipulating power. But then, it wasn't confined either. Nuclei, clearly, were far chattier than lines.

The paper was blank.

Remembering the heat of my hand had made the clues appear on the other scroll, I held this one nearer the candle flames. Sure enough, the letters sparkled and appeared.

PROTREPTICUS

Summon a Spirit.

Procure its permission.

Bind it to your bauble.

Seal it safely in.

It sounded so easy. Like a recipe: mix, pour, bake. But it left out the ingredients, the amounts, the bake temperature, and the time. This was not going to be a simple task.

The items on the table were pretty standard stuff for such an unstandard spell. My plan started forming. Stones, black thread, chalk… but nothing to write on.

The floor.

Summon a spirit.

With the chalk in hand, I sank to my knees and drew a rectangle on the wooden floor. Inside, I wrote the letters of the alphabet in two rows, numbers below those rows, punctuation marks below that. Drawing a large deosil circle, big enough to enclose me and the rectangle, I stepped outside it and drew another larger circle beyond it. Beyond it, I drew a third circle.

Studying the items on the table, I considered the herbs first. Honeysuckle and basil. Both had protective properties, but basil aided astral travel, which I wanted to avoid, and it was banishing, whereas I needed to bind. Honeysuckle aided psychic power, intuition, so I chose it and left the other behind. Transferring items from the table to the inner circle, I took the salt and water, the orange candles and the white candles. Lastly, I appraised the stones; all were beneficial, so all were moved to the inner circle.

I placed an onyx in the north, turquoise in the east, sunstone to the south, and jade in the west. Each got a white tea light candle, lit from the taper on the table, before I took up the bowl of salt. I spun, tossing salt wide across the floor.

"Triple rows and sealed up fast,

my hallowed circle now is cast."

After using the honeysuckle bundle as an asperging tool to flick water in each direction, I then held the orange candle up in salute to each compass point and said,

"Earth from the North, Eastern Winds, Southern Flames,

Water from the West…

Elements—hear me! — keep my circle blessed.

Safely shut me in, please,

Shut all else out.

Protect me now.

Truly I speak, truly I see.

So mote it be."

With the protective niceties in place, I sat and put my hands to the chalk circle containing me.

Reaching out for the ley line, I called to it, humming.

It was there, far below. Hunkering, hiding in the dark, yet watching me like a starving animal watches someone enticing it with meat. It had been waiting, yearning for someone to call it and here I was, alive and strong, searching for it. But the other contestants, they were searching for it also. It was suspicious.

They locked me away, it whispered. So far below.

"Open for me," I whispered back.

Unlock me. Unleash me!

"I have no key."

No key! The despair in that whisper was pitiful.

What kind of lock would Vivian use? My mind ran through various magical seals, all of which I discarded for their ease or lack of effectiveness for something as big as a ley line nucleus. Vivian had access to the Codex. She could have altered many sorcery-laden locks beyond anything I knew. But that would be no good to any contestant.

Contestant. The line had said «they» locked it away, not "she."

I had an idea.

"I have a key," I pulled the skeleton key on the white string from under my shirt.

That's it! Touch me.

With the key in hand, I visualized reaching my left hand down, down through the Covenstead floor, through the basement levels, through the foundation, through layers of earth and rock and there… there were the ley lines, low and deep, tingling in the palm of my hands, scraping like a flint about to spark. I stopped and visualized a buffer around my hand, a static kind of glove for handling the cords of a nucleus. The visualized ley lines were white-hot cords and suddenly in my mind's eye I could see them all interconnecting, six lines joining and dropping into the earth, like strings of Yule lights knotted and impossible to unravel.

Ahhh, yesssssss.

All these lines were energy, all had the ability to access the dead, some more than others. Among these cords was a highway to the Summerland, a threaded conduit for traveling—if you weren't bound to a physical body, that is. In astral travel, where the spirit leaves the body, a sorcerer could visit the dead, other entities, and perform all kinds of nonphysical tasks. Of course, there had to be protections in place so that nothing slipped into the sorcerer's body while the spirit was absent. This bit of chalk, salt, and water wasn't up to that level of protection. I had to call spirits to me.

Which cord was it? Which string to pluck?

Spirits have a certain feel. The nerve endings just below skin discern them the same way they gauge temperature. Though intangible, the information registers in the brain. Most people wouldn't recognize the texture of a spirit, as they discern more strongly on the reaction they have to it: the hair on the nape of their neck rises and, possibly, goose bumps rise. Anyone who's ever been in a truly haunted house knows that the malign variety of spirit also strokes their flight response.

With the static buffer covering my palm, I sorted through the cords; patiently searching for that texture, like steam and silk, the one that evoked the reaction in me. Finally, I found it. Visualizing the static glove holding tight to that cord, my hand slipped a measure away—no sense risking getting pulled in.

"Arise spirits, hear my call,

Arise between the drawn walls.

Listen now and hasten near!

I've an offer for you to hear."

Reaching for the little stones with my right hand, I came up with a rainbow moonstone in my palm. As an afterthought, I grabbed the carnelian and sat it before me, for courage. Using the moonstone like a mini-planchette on my makeshift witchboard, I began to spell the words.

Am making a protrepticus.

A spirit-house.

Who will live in it?

I watched the edge of my circle. The ring just outside this one shimmered as if there were dust in the air illuminated by flickering sunbeams. Spirits came and peeked in, little orbs flashing by, more than I could count.

Who is willing?

The parade of orbs continued; it was fascinating. In my heart, I began to hope that Lorrie would come by and be willing. It would be a way for Beverley and her to communicate and stay in touch. But that was an exponentially long, long shot.

What was I thinking? I was supposed to fail this round.

Go now.

Never mind.

I had participated. The Elders could not punish me if I lost my nerve, if I sabotaged myself, or if it appeared that no spirits would take me up on my offer.

Thank you.

A light glistened on my face.

An orb was hovering about three feet off the ground in the outer circle. It remained steady. Others did not follow, did not pass through. This one waited.

Go on. Return.

From the little collection of stones, a pointy quartz crystal trembled and slid across the wood floor to the chalk letters before me. I lifted the moonstone out of the way. The crystal looped along in little circles, pausing briefly to spell out:

Too late for that.

Oh shit.

Proceed.

Concentrating on the orb, I whispered, "You give permission?"

You did not ask for it.

"I just did."

Verbally.

Great. A difficult spirit. "You want me to spell it?"

Offering.

My brows hunkered down. Right. To take something from the beyond, I have to balance it by giving something back to the beyond. This was where, in ancient cultures, the sacrifice came in. But I had no animal to trade, and wasn't sure I would have been able to if I did. I had stones, herbs, chalk, and candles; all tangible items.

"What offering is appropriate?"

Your soul for mine.

"No way. Absolutely not."

Ha ha.

What the hell? A difficult, jokester spirit? "No deal."

Promise me vengeance.

"Vengeance?"

Avenge my wrongful death.

"I don't know the details, or even the era of your death. I cannot promise vengeance, but I can promise to investigate to the extent of my abilities."

More than investigation. Action! Punishment!

My curiosity was piqued. As Lustrata, this would be acceptable. "What if you are lying?"

Was murdered!

"Yes. I will investigate and if you are wrongfully dead and if a course of action exists that I can take to avenge your death—without harming me and mine—I will."

The crystal spun in place three times.

Agreed.

"You will be housed in this." I held up the cell phone, hoping it would decline to live in the contraption.

Agreed.

Now all I had to do was bring the spirit into the middle circle, put it in the cell phone, bind it there, and seal it in. The «easy» part was done. The next part would bind me to this phone, and to this spirit who wanted vengeance.

I really didn't want to be the high priestess.